All the way home, chilling thoughts kept running through Sterling ’s mind: What happened on the subway platform was no accident, and what will the Badgett brothers do next?
Lee Kramer sat alone in the small hospital waiting room reserved for the families of people in intensive care. Except for the few minutes at a time that she had been able to stand at the foot of Hans’s bed, this was where she had been since before dawn, when she had followed the ambulance to the hospital.
She tried to remind herself that the doctor had said that Hans was stabilizing. He said that Hans had been lucky. The fact that the fire department was at the scene and had the equipment to shock his heart and start it beating again had saved his life.
He’s been under too much stress, Lee thought. The sight of the fire put him over the edge.
She glanced up when the door opened, then turned away. A number of her friends had stopped in and sat with her during the day, but she did not know this sober-faced, dark-haired man.
FBI agent Rich Meyers had come to the hospital hoping that he would be allowed to speak to Hans Kramer for a few minutes. That was out of the question, the nurse had told him firmly, but then added that Mrs. Kramer was in the waiting room.
“Mrs. Kramer?”
Lee whirled around. “Yes. Is anything…?”
The strain on Lee Kramer’s face was obvious. She looked as though she’d been punched in the stomach. Her short, ash-blond hair, blue eyes, and fresh complexion told Meyers that, like her husband, she was probably of Swiss extraction.
Rich introduced himself and handed her his card. A look of alarm came over her face. “FBI?” she asked.
“We’re investigating the possibility that the fire at your husband’s warehouse was deliberately set.”
“Deliberately set? Who would do that?” Her eyes widened.
Meyers sat down in the vinyl chair opposite her. “Do you know anything about loans your husband may have taken out?”
Lee put her hand to her mouth, and the thoughts that had tormented her all day tumbled out. “When everything turned and the business started to go bad, we took a second mortgage on the house for every cent the bank would lend us. There’s a mortgage on the warehouse, but only as much as we could borrow on it. I know it’s underinsured. Hans was so sure that if he could tough it through a little longer, the business would take off. He really is brilliant. The software program he designed can’t miss.” Her voice faltered. “And now what does all that matter? If only he makes it…”
“Mrs. Kramer, in addition to the mortgages, were there any other loans your husband may have taken?”
“I didn’t know about any, but this morning, after we got the call about the fire, he said something like, ‘I borrowed a lot of money…’ ”
Meyers’s face remained impassive. “Did he tell you who it was borrowed from?”
“No, that was all he said.”
“Then you probably wouldn’t have known if he made a phone call yesterday evening and left a message for someone about repaying a loan?”
“No, I don’t know anything about that. But he was very agitated last night.”
“Mrs. Kramer, does your husband have a cell phone?”
“Yes.”
“We’d like to have your permission to check his cell phone account and home phone records to see if he made a call last night.”
“Who would he have been calling?”
“People who don’t give extensions on loans.”
Her insides churning, Lee was afraid to ask the next question. “Is Hans in any trouble?”
“With the law? No. We just want to talk to him about that loan. The doctor will tell us when it’s possible to see him.”
“
Charlie Santoli had left the Badgetts’ office as quickly as possible after he’d been excoriated for not succeeding in his mission to buy Billy Campbell’s silence, but at four o’clock Junior sent for him again.
He hastened down the corridor and around the corner to the executive suite shared by Junior and Eddie. Their long-time secretary was at her desk. Years ago, Charlie had decided that even as a baby, Lil must have had pugnacious features. Now that she had passed the fifty mark, they had settled into a permanent scowl. Still, he liked Lil, and she was probably the only person in the building who was not afraid of Junior.
She looked up, her eyes magnified by her oversized glasses, and jerked her thumb over her shoulder, always the sign to go right in. Then in a voice made hoarse by years of chain-smoking, she rasped, “The mood is slightly better.” She paused. “Ask me if I care.”
Charlie knew he didn’t have to respond. He took a deep breath and pushed open the door.
Junior and Eddie were sitting on the zebra chairs, glasses in their hands. Toward the end of the business day they often had a drink together before getting into their limo and heading home. If Charlie happened to be there, he was usually told to help himself from the bar.
Today was not one of those days. He was neither offered a drink, nor was he asked to sit down.
Junior looked over at him. “Just in case Campbell smartens up, we need to have this scholarship program on the level. Everyone knows we just gave big bucks to the old folks. Now we gotta take care of the little ones. You figure out the details. Find nine other outstanding kids from the area, all of’em the age of Campbell ’s kid. We think it would be very nice of us to give them scholarships too.”
They’ve got to be kidding, Charlie thought. Hesitantly, he suggested, “I think it would be wise if at least some of the children are older. How can you explain to the media that you want to give ten college scholarships to first-graders when there are high school boys and girls who need them now?”
“We don’t wanna do that,” Eddie barked. “We wanna build for the future. And if Campbell is smart enough to fall in line, we slide his kid’s name in with the others.”
“Marissa’s marks are good and she’s a nifty little ice-skater,” Junior remarked offhandedly as he bit the end off a cigar. “Go find us other talented kiddies like her.”
Charlie felt one more turn of the winch that twisted his digestive system.
“Of course, if you can’t persuade Billy Campbell to retract anything he might have said about our little joke, there won’t be any need for a fund,” Junior said quietly. “Don’t let us keep you, Charlie. I know how busy you are.”
Back in his own office, Charlie tried to reassure himself that, bad as they were, people like Junior and Eddie never went after the children of their enemies.
But those two… He could not pursue the thought. Instead he found himself praying that Billy Campbell would wise up and accept the scholarship.
Shaking his head, he reached for a folder with the information about the car dealership the Badgetts wanted to buy. He had intended to spend his whole day on it, but had been too distracted to concentrate.
At 6:30 he closed the file and got up. He had his coat on and his briefcase in his hand when the phone rang. Reluctantly he picked it up.
A low, husky voice that he did not recognize said, “Charlie, the boss told me to pass the word that Billy Campbell almost took a dive in front of a subway train, but I managed to save him.”
Before Charlie could answer, the connection was broken.
He replaced the receiver and stood at his desk for a long minute. In all the years he’d worked
